[HN Gopher] What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of Mad Magazine
___________________________________________________________________
What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of Mad Magazine
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 237 points
Date : 2024-09-23 16:25 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nrm.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nrm.org)
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Through my childhood, my mother always found a copy of MAD to
| give me for Christmas.
|
| Honestly, it'd be great to have more physical zine-style humor
| back in the US zeitgeist.
|
| It's important to laugh at the issues of the day, while also
| thinking and doing something about them.
|
| Satire and laughter is a critical antidote to the 24/7 BREAKING-
| NEWS panic-fear response that all-day news so often inspires.
|
| PS: Also, long live Spy v Spy. Go team black spy.
| https://archive.org/details/SpyVsSpyTheCompleteCasebook/Spy%...
| bluedino wrote:
| Hah! Mad Magazine was one of the things my mother refused to
| allow me to checkout from the library.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Jeanette Winterson recalled her mother's lament about books:
| "You can't tell by looking what's inside them."
| DonHopkins wrote:
| The Simpsons did the best tribute to Mad that captured its
| true essence:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzu4qILQqpA
| pfarrell wrote:
| "New Kids on the Blech" is spot on.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Fred Astaire as Alfred E. Neuman: In 1959, Fred Astaire
| danced on television with the odd choice of wearing a
| mask of Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqzpuGXd1lA
|
| Makeup and prosthetics expert John Chambers checks the
| fit on an Alfred E. Neuman mask he made for a television
| special in 1959. The man behind the mask is Fred Astaire.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/uuturm/ma
| keu...
|
| Disturbing Alfred E. Neuman Cameo / Worst Movie Ending
| from Up The Academy (1980): Eek.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K71kJbWWOkY
| DaoVeles wrote:
| Complete opposite experience here, my grandad had a
| subscription to it! Not sure what happened to the decades of
| them because they were all gone by the time he passed.
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| Mad once caricatured the young Prince Charles with enormous
| ears. They got an anonymous letter on Buckingham Palace
| stationary informing them that they were a bunch of
| poopyheads.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| 1993 SNL skit about Prince Charles turning himself into a
| tampon, featuring a cameo appearance by Mick Jagger
| delivering a package containing Prince Charles to Lady
| Camilla:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwrzj_oMZ7c
|
| A skit like that could have never aired on live TV without
| Mad Magazine paving the way in print.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| I read the magazine religiously as a kid (early 2000s). I got
| special editions for christmas (collections of prior
| articles/comics on particular subjects). There was one about
| advertising (Called MADvertising or something) that has a lot
| of information about old advertisements from the 1950s onward
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Occasionally, I'll find old copies of Life and/or single page
| cut outs for movies/events.
|
| The advertisements (sometimes on the back) are honestly more
| interesting.
|
| There's no truer window into a capitalist country's soul than
| how products are sold!
| DaoVeles wrote:
| Dick Bartolo one of the writers for Mad used to host The Giz
| Wiz on twit.tv. It was a daily review of all kinds of random
| gadgets that come up, it looked to be a life long fascination
| with those advertisements in the back of magazines. Promise
| the world and deliver rubbish.
|
| He saw one that had "10 indestructible Fry pans for $1". He
| knew had had to get them because of how rubbish they would
| be. Apparently you fold them in half like paper they were so
| thin.
|
| Edit : Just looked it up, he wrote MAD-vertising. So there
| you go.
| criddell wrote:
| In case you didn't know, The Onion is back in print:
|
| https://membership.theonion.com/
| DaoVeles wrote:
| I am so glad to see things like this happening again. Im not
| saying "bring back all the magazines!" But some of them had a
| real place in the format.
|
| The one thing I loved about the old tech mags was because of
| the longer cadence they could really focus on long form and
| more indepth articles than what we usually get.
|
| Shout out to Atomic magazine in Australia during the early
| 2000s. Absolute peak of this stuff.
| ghaff wrote:
| So much has shifted to "what is being announced *right
| now?" Who care what was new and notable last month? I get
| that the cadence is different but it's much more about hot
| takes than reflection.
| scottyah wrote:
| It seems to me that the Onion had a schism and split into the
| Babylon Bee and this new, very political version. I ended up
| unfollowing them on Instagram when it was (in my opinion)
| just thinly-veiled hate-based politics.
|
| Did anyone experience something similar in the last year or
| so, or am I the one changing?
| ttmb wrote:
| I had never heard of the Babylon Bee and I just took a look
| at it. Are you saying you think The Onion is the very
| political one, or did I misread your sentence?
| scottyah wrote:
| I think the Onion has become very political over the last
| year or so. When I started following the Babylon Bee,
| they were already very political to me.
| SL61 wrote:
| The Onion has always been very political with a liberal
| slant. I have some of their print collections from the
| early 2000s and they're similar to today's Onion with
| maybe a little more edge.
|
| Their gun control headline "'No Way to Prevent This,'
| Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" (https://e
| n.wikipedia.org/wiki/'No_Way_to_Prevent_This%2C'_Sa...)
| dates to 2014.
| criddell wrote:
| Since wanting to end school shootings is not a left or
| right issue, how would a conservative publication
| satirize the issue?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| You'll probably love this.
|
| https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/cartoons-s3/styles/pro...
|
| ...An artistic portrait of Antonio Prohias (Mr. "Spy vs Spy")
| by Cuban cartoonist and illustrator Ramses Morales Izquierdo.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Found a Mad Magazine at my grandparents' place as a pre-teen,
| opened it, and immediately picked one of the spies to root for
| against the other one. Serious tribal instinct there.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I miss Spy Magazine (no relation to MAD or Spy vs. Spy).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_(magazine)
|
| My favorite cover (very slightly NSFW):
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3662697/The-spy-who-hate...
| Loughla wrote:
| We had the MAD board game. I don't remember anything except the
| card that made everyone act like a rock, with the best rock
| impression winning. So weird.
| jansan wrote:
| There was a Spy vs. Spy game on the C64:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu2e866bEcM
| Propelloni wrote:
| There were actually two Spy vs. Spy games. The second one was
| named Spy vs. Spy II. Genius!
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| Three, actually! They even had a bit of continuity. In the
| first game you have to escape the embassy by plane before a
| bomb goes off, in the second your plane crashes on a
| volcanic island and you have to escape by submarine before
| it erupts, in the third your sub crashes into a glacier and
| you have to escape by rocket before you freeze to death.
|
| Or something like that, it's been a while.
| interludead wrote:
| > It's important to laugh at the issues of the day, while also
| thinking and doing something about them.
|
| Laughter has this incredible way of cutting through the noise
| and getting to the heart of things.
| webdoodle wrote:
| > It's important to laugh at the issues of the day
|
| Is it? In Robert Heilein's Stranger in a Strange Land one of
| the central conflicts involves the main character who's grown
| up on Mars, where there are no humans and no humor. He is
| thrust into Earth, humans and humor and makes a bold
| observation about humor: We only laugh at things that cause
| pain. Whether physical, mental or spiritual, all humor is
| reflecting on pain.
|
| So with that in mind, laughter starts to look a lot more like a
| psychological hiccup. Or a reaction to pain. That's all without
| getting into who's doing the laughing and who's being laughed
| at. They aren't mutually exclusive, but they have different
| psychological impacts on each participant. Does the person
| being laughed at, want to be laughed at? Perhaps to them its
| another form of social control...
| gosub100 wrote:
| His observation is a work of fiction, not an authoritative or
| evidence based one.
| freejazz wrote:
| I take it you've never read Mad magazine then?
| borski wrote:
| MAD was one of the first pieces of humor I truly fell in love
| with. I knew about comedy before it, but I don't know that I
| really understood comedy before it.
|
| It's not that it was perfect; it's that I grew up with it and
| came of age with it. Also, my immigrant parents didn't get it, so
| I was able to enjoy it on my own and it was my first taste of
| figuring out what I find funny, rather than laughing when other
| people did.
| owlninja wrote:
| I just love Don Martin's style!
| Cheyana wrote:
| Came in to comment on this, all of them were great but Don was
| the GOAT. And his sound effects! I would love to compile a list
| of them.
| eludwig wrote:
| I still have my original copy of "The MAD Adventures of
| Captain Klutz", probably bought around 1970ish. Such a
| singular talent. Died pretty young (68), which is sad.
| JackFr wrote:
| "Eat More Mangoes"
| kubanczyk wrote:
| If anyone is interested why there is "Potrzebie" above "what, me
| worry?" on the drum: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potrzebie
| cancerhacker wrote:
| https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/fg.html
| euroderf wrote:
| I don't remember whether it was Potrzebie or one of the other
| classic MAD nonsense words, but one day I was amazed to see it
| as a town name on a sign in the Czech Republic. With a couple
| of accents.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| "potrzebie" was the default password for Wizard(#1) on TinyMUD
| and its derivatives. If I recall correctly, that usage is
| traced all the way back to Jim Aspnes' original, minimal
| database.
|
| https://www.tinymux.org/install.txt
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Aspnes
| mauvehaus wrote:
| The linked Norman Rockwell Museum is in Stockbridge, MA, which is
| _also_ home to (formerly) the Alice 's Restaurant[0] of Arlo
| Guthrie fame.
|
| [0] For today's lucky 10,000:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m57gzA2JCcM
| cancerhacker wrote:
| Many years ago, I was just doing a drive through vacation of
| New England and woke up in my B&B to the smell of roasting
| turkey - I hadn't realized it but I'd wound up in Stockbridge
| on Thanksgiving day. I don't recall anything special going on
| in town other than a radio station playing Alice's Restaurant
| on repeat.
| danielktdoranie wrote:
| When I was I preteen in 1980s I loved MAD. I even had a
| collection, I resisted the urge to fold the back page just to
| keep them nice and instead folded the back page of a copy in the
| grocery store
| bbarnett wrote:
| YOU! My mom would always come home, and claim it "was that way"
| when she bought it for me.
|
| I thought she was doing it. But it was _you_.
| xist wrote:
| Stuff You Should Know had a podcast last year on it with the back
| story of how it was created
| https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-stuff-you-should-know-26...
| frankfrank13 wrote:
| I love MAD magazine. I remember my mom half-jokingly telling me
| to stay away from my older cousins' copies as a kid. Funny now,
| considering how tame it is compared to Tiktok/twitter humor. But
| as a kid it felt otherwordly.
|
| Anyways here's the example MAD folding picture from the exhibit
| when its folded --
| https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbtwberkshi...
| genewitch wrote:
| My cousins had a large collection from i guess the 70s and very
| early 80s that i read a lot. My mom and aunt had read them too.
| So one day i bought a new one at the store and brought it home
| and my mom found it. There was a parody of Edward Scissorhands,
| and one of the topiaries he made was of a middle finger. I
| didn't know what that was as she described it (flipping the
| bird). Apparently that was enough to get it banned in my house.
|
| Incidentally, i got a parent teacher meeting for bringing some
| stickers from one of my cousin's Mad magazines to school. There
| was a "POINK" onomatopoeia with a lady's boob and a wardrobe
| malfunction on one of the stickers, and this was enough to
| warrant the third degree.
|
| Mad magazine was pretty tame, i never got the puritanism
| exhibited by everyone around me, especially since they had read
| the magazine when they were young, and their kids, too, but i
| read the same ones and suddenly it's taboo?
| ylere wrote:
| > Anyways here's the example MAD folding picture from the
| exhibit when its folded -- https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=
| https%3A%2F%2Fbtwberkshi......
|
| Working link to the page that contains the picture:
| https://btwberkshires.com/arts/visual-arts/mad-magazine-draw...
| whartung wrote:
| If you look around in stores, MAD is doing kind of "best of"
| issues.
|
| I purchased one recently with their old sci-fi stuff (original
| "Star Drek", there Star Wars parody, etc. ). I found it in a
| grocery store.
|
| Classic stuff to be sure.
| genewitch wrote:
| full color, higher page counts are ~$18. I get maybe one a year
| and i have no idea where they are!
| mdf wrote:
| I remember, as a child, attempting to reproduce the BASIC program
| in one of the MAD magazine issues. Somewhere, I had made a typo,
| which completely screwed the output. I guessed that the
| tediousness of the whole exercise was part of the joke, shrugged,
| and moved on.
|
| Luckily, someone else succeeded: https://meatfighter.com/mad/
| m463 wrote:
| dedication to create an svg version...
|
| https://meatfighter.com/mad/mad.svg
| arp242 wrote:
| It was pretty common to distribute code as "listing" like this.
| Typically it came with a checksum for every line and a small
| program to compute and print that for your own program that you
| had typed over, which you could then use to fairly
| quickly(-ish) spot any typos.
|
| All of this is how I learned to program by the way. Kids these
| days don't know how easy they have it.
| mellavora wrote:
| Checksums! Bah, I used to have to code uphill both ways in
| the snow, and I liked it!
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Checksums were a great idea but I just could never resist the
| temptation to make changes to the program as I was typing it
| in.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Huh, we used to type in BASIC programs from magazines back in
| the 1980s and I don't ever recall seeing any kinds of
| checksum. We would often resort to printing out the code and
| visually comparing line by line against the magazine.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Checksums became popular at some point in the 80s. I
| remember when COMPUTE! first added them they were a
| godsend. Especially for the machine language programs that
| were just pages of data statements.
| arp242 wrote:
| The first edition of MSX Computer Magazine from 1985 has
| them, and I doubt they were the first or invented it: https
| ://www.msxcomputermagazine.nl/archief/bladen/msx_comput...
|
| Perhaps it was less common in other countries? Things were
| a lot less global back then and things operated more on a
| local level.
| pimlottc wrote:
| We mostly had Family Computing magazine. I looked up an
| issue from 1985 with one of my favorite type-by-hand
| games, Hit or Miss [0], and no sight of a helpful
| checksum.
|
| To be honest, the idea of it would have blown my mind
| back then; the idea that your BASIC code is just a text
| file that can be processed by other programs is something
| that would never have occurred to me.
|
| https://archive.org/details/FamilyComputingIssue041983Dec
| /Fa...
| mrandish wrote:
| In the early 80s I never saw checksums on code listings but
| by the mid-80s it was fairly common, although certainly not
| universal.
| latexr wrote:
| I would take typing a program by hand from printed paper over
| dealing with npm, any day.
|
| Thankfully I have to do neither.
| tyre wrote:
| > Kids these days don't know how easy they have it.
|
| Maybe it's rose-colored glasses, but I have much fonder
| memories of programming basic on a Ti-84 calculator than
| debugging an import incompatibility between. Es5 and CommonJS
| modules
| dole wrote:
| The Commodore version of the source in the magazine _never_
| worked. I probably typed it in at least five times in whole
| thinking I 'd screwed something up. It wasn't until a few years
| ago (from an HN post, no less) that I found the link above and
| finally, finally got to see what the code did.
| jordigh wrote:
| It's a sign error.
|
| https://github.com/asig/MAD_computer_program?tab=readme-
| ov-f...
| evanelias wrote:
| Excellent link, thank you for posting this.
|
| In case there are any other Sergio Aragones superfan weirdos
| like me here, who only click MAD-related stories in order to
| command-f for "Sergio Aragones" and then move on when
| inevitably there are no results: today's your lucky day, click
| that link above!
| derencius wrote:
| nice. I'm a Groo fan.
| jordigh wrote:
| A port to GNU Octave... x = [
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| 7,-29,6,-31,13,-35,13,-35,4,-37,8,-35,5,-36,8,-37 ...
| -16,-49,-8,-50,9,-53,9,-49,20,-37,29,-39,-17,-39,-24,-41 ...
| 21,-36,32,-44,-2,-62,5,-61,9,-58,16,-53,-26,-44,-22,-46 ...
| -51,1,-43,12,7,14,15,13,13,11,17,8,20,10,27,4 ...
| -42,11,-49,2,8,13,19,12,19,11,10,12,22,9,27,5 ...
| -24,-56,-22,-59,-23,-58,-4,-74,-23,-56,-15,-67,-21,-57,-8,-72
| ...
| -7,-73,-12,-69,-12,-68,-4,-71,-21,-58,-13,-68,-10,-71,8,-74 ...
| 12,-32,14,-35,13,-32,12,-37,14,-34,13,-37,11,-37,14,-36 ...
| -17,-6,-10,-8,-13,-9,-10,-6,-10,-7,-11,-6,-12,-6,-15,-6 ...
| 17,-35,21,-39,7,-62,14,-56,14,-51,-17,-48,4,-43,4,-47 ...
| -11,-12,-12,-14,-12,-13,-9,-15,-20,-16,-15,-16,-17,-16,-15,-16
| ...
| -11,-22,-12,-24,-9,-22,-12,-23,-9,-20,-11,-24,-8,-20,-9,-23 ...
| -34,-2,-33,6,25,7,29,7,30,8,30,6,31,8,35,9 ...
| -33,3,-33,-1,33,8,36,8,36,7,36,2,35,4,35,7 ...
| -32,6,-31,11,-30,11,-29,4,3,48,-3,41,-5,41,2,48 ...
| -5,-59,-6,-62,12,-52,21,-47,-2,-54,-2,-53,-4,-60,3,-62 ...
| -44,-47,-41,-49,-54,-24,-56,-30,-36,-43,-37,-48,-47,-37,-49,-32
| ...
| -40,-48,-45,-46,-38,-47,-35,-44,-58,-36,-51,-40,-58,-35,-48,-45
| ...
| 24,-42,32,-42,-3,-61,-3,-61,-54,-19,-50,-18,-5,-72,9,-72 ...
| 10,-22,10,-22,19,-22,19,-22,13,-16,13,-16,9,-19,10,-20 ...
| -25,-42,-21,-41,2,-53,4,-54,29,-40,31,-46,26,-43,22,-48 ...
| 6,-10,18,-6,14,-6,21,-7,22,-8,6,-11 ...
| 1,-38,-14,-36,-13,-37,-11,-32,-14,-35,-12,-33 ...
| 55,-37,41,-51,46,-48,61,-33,41,-49,37,-48 ...
| -10,-21,-10,-24,-28,-14,-22,-7 ...
| -3,43,-26,35,-26,35,-5,41,-9,39,-20,36,-26,34,-26,37 ...
| -6,-58,1,-60,-24,-43,-21,-42,3,-45,3,-46,4,-52,4,-53 ...
| 72,73,72,63,71,74,70,78,71,62,70,58,69,57,65,53,70,78,65,83 ...
| 64,83,58,86,64,53,55,48,56,49,43,49,47,48,55,48,58,86,46,86 ...
| 42,84,46,85,44,50,39,52,42,50,39,51,41,85,40,85,39,86,33,86 ...
| 38,51,33,48,35,79,35,58,34,79,34,58,34,57,32,56,34,80,32,79 ...
| 32,85,30,83,31,83,31,80,30,82,30,79,31,55,29,55,33,49,23,49 ...
| 32,48,25,48,24,50,22,50,28,55,17,78,18,79,20,79,20,80,20,84 ...
| 21,51,18,48,19,50,17,48,16,48,14,48,17,49,14,49,19,85,11,86 ...
| 13,48,12,53,12,48,11,53,11,54,15,57,15,58,14,59,14,59,-1,59 ...
| 14,58,-2,58,10,85,7,83,6,84,1,86,0,86,-5,85,-6,84,-6,80,-7,83,-
| 7,79 ...
| -5,79,-3,79,-2,78,-13,56,-14,56,-3,78,-2,59,-4,57,-4,56,-1,54
| ... 0,55,1,55,1,54,1,50,0,50,-1,48,-2,48,-7,48,-2,49,-6,
| 49,-6,48,-9,51 ... -7,48,-10,50,-11,49,-17,49,-12,48,-16
| ,48,-17,48,-21,51,-18,48,-22,50 ... -15,55,-16,55,-17,56
| ,-22,78,-21,79,-19,79,-19,80,-19,84,-23,49,-30,49 ...
| -24,48,-30,48,-31,48,-31,55,-32,54,-32,49,-30,55,-28,55 ...
| -20,85,-25,86,-26,85,-29,83,-28,55,-32,70,-28,55,-31,71 ...
| -28,83,-33,86,-34,86,-37,86,-32,70,-41,49,-38,85,-40,84 ...
| -40,83,-40,81,-41,83,-41,79,-40,80,-37,78,-37,78,-41,65 ...
| -42,65,-38,78,-43,64,-48,78,-47,79,-45,79,-45,80,-45,84 ...
| -46,85,-51,86,-42,49,-47,49,-42,48,-48,48,-48,48,-56,70 ...
| -48,49,-56,71,-56,71,-60,56,-52,85,-54,84,-55,83,-59,85 ...
| -60,86,-64,86,-59,55,-58,54,-57,54,-55,55,-55,54,-55,50 ...
| -56,50,-57,48,-57,49,-61,49,-58,48,-60,48,-61,48,-64,51 ...
| -62,48,-65,50,-65,85,-67,84,-67,83,-67,79,-68,83,-68,79,-66,79,
| -64,79 ...
| -63,78,-68,56,-69,55,-64,78,-66,49,-72,49,-68,48,-73,48 ...
| -69,55,-73,55,-73,55,-73,48,-74,49,-74,54 ...
| 61,71,61,65,60,73,60,63,59,73,59,72,60,65,58,60 ...
| 59,61,54,56,59,74,55,78,59,75,54,80,54,80,48,80 ...
| 46,79,55,79,54,56,48,56,47,57,46,57,47,78,46,78 ...
| 45,78,45,58,7,76,11,66,10,66,6,76,9,66,1,66,0,66,6,75];
| l = reshape(x, 4, 522)'; [x1, y1, x2, y2] = deal(l(:,1),
| l(:,2), l(:,3), l(:,4)); sz = 1.2; xc = 140;
| yc = 90; fx = x1*sz + xc; fy = 176 - (y1 + yc);
| lx = x2*sz + xc; ly = 176 - (y2 + yc); plot([fx+1,
| lx+1]', [fy, ly]', '-b', [fx, lx]', [fy, ly]', '-b');
| axis tight; axis off; axis ij; h =
| title('What, me worry?'); set(h, 'position', [140,
| 170]);
| froh wrote:
| oh great.
|
| the listing is missing checksums! madness!
|
| we're in 2024, checksums are the least I can expect.
| bbarnett wrote:
| It's worse than that. It's actually an AGI seed. If you run
| it, you get an AI which quickly gains sentience... but it's
| Mad.
| benrmatthews wrote:
| "What Simple Pastime is Becoming a Luxury that Many Americans Can
| No Longer Afford?"
|
| Anyone have the "after" of the fold-in image?
| swayvil wrote:
| Teeth. I can't afford teeth.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| AKA "luxury bones".
| genewitch wrote:
| "eating"
| duskwuff wrote:
| "Eating."
|
| https://i.postimg.cc/wjXHqQhF/MAD-Fold-In-Al-Jaffe-172-What-...
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| You thought the _early_ 1970 's was when the US currency had
| been damaged the worst?
|
| This was 1979. By then it was tens of millions more Americans
| who were being discarded economically[0] in order to retain a
| fuller illusion of prosperity within reach for the remainder.
|
| [0] Never to be heard from economically again.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| in my day MAD was purely subscription based: no advertising
| supportengineer wrote:
| My mom would buy me these because she loved hearing me laughing
| hysterically.
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _The Mad Magazine Fold-In Effect in CSS - Thomas Park (2020)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36856428 - July 2023 (5
| comments)
|
| _Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35517629 - April 2023 (64
| comments)
|
| _Frank Jacobs, Mad Magazine writer, has died_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26819773 - April 2021 (18
| comments)
|
| _Al Jaffee turns 100_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26461739 - March 2021 (28
| comments)
|
| _The Al Jaffee / Mad Magazine Fold-In Effect in CSS_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23457930 - June 2020 (43
| comments)
|
| _Mad magazine legend Al Jaffee retires at age 99_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442041 - June 2020 (25
| comments)
|
| _A World Without Mad Magazine_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20527990 - July 2019 (2
| comments)
|
| _The World According to Mad Magazine_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20427142 - July 2019 (5
| comments)
|
| _Mad Magazine to mostly stop publishing new material_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20351524 - July 2019 (86
| comments)
|
| _A personal tour of MAD magazine, in the crucible of a young
| life_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11984032 - June 2016
| (12 comments)
|
| _Al Feldstein, the Soul of Mad Magazine, Dies at 88_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7680093 - May 2014 (17
| comments)
| dogleash wrote:
| >It is difficult to imagine a time when satirical, irreverent
| humor was not common across media
|
| I hate the word "irreverent." It's in every article about comedy
| written by people who don't seem to understand the difference
| between disrespecting things that are safe to dunk on, vs
| breaking cultural boundaries.
| eterm wrote:
| Yes, very few news sources are genuinely irreverent. The
| Register is one of the few, and you can tell, because it often
| gets people in the comments here complaining of it's style.
|
| A lot of content out there, user-driven especially, is just
| sarcastic or "ironic" for the sake of it, not actually pushing
| boundaries. Worse, they're often cementing the status quo but
| doing so in a way that doesn't actually make the point they
| want to make.
|
| They just state the (often minority) counter-point in a
| sarcastic tone and leave it to the reader to fill in the
| (typically agreeable) blanks.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| They want the benefit of the label without the execution
| swayvil wrote:
| Used to have a subscription. Me and Dad would try to get it
| first. Mom bought tons of their little paperback compilations at
| garage sales. They programmed me into the man I am today.
|
| In retrospect, goddamn they were bleak. I guess that's just the
| later stuff tho. I saw the really early stuff in reprints. It had
| a different flavor.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| One of my favorites has always been the pharmacist behind the
| scenes dispensing all prescription medications from a single huge
| bottle of aspirin.
| patwolf wrote:
| I used to read MAD as a kid. At some point in the 90s they
| released a CD-ROM set of every issue. It was a neat idea, but the
| software was pretty bad, and some of the scans we're great. They
| simulated the fold-in effect, but the alignment was off on some
| of the issues.
| CalChris wrote:
| When I was a kid, we'd regularly get _MAD_ at the supermarket.
| We'd all read it cover to cover. I was young and some of it was
| over my head but that's ok. In junior high, my college age sister
| gave me a subscription to _Sports Illustrated_ which I read cover
| to cover; _SI_ had a reputation of paying the most for its
| articles and the writing was excellent. In my 20s, I subscribed
| to _Spy_ and was inoculated by phrases like _fat fingered
| vulgarian_ against a future which should never have happened.
| lifefeed wrote:
| n+1 once said McSweeny's (https://www.mcsweeneys.net/) is just
| Mad Magazine for the literary set, and today is the right time to
| share that.
| peppermill wrote:
| The whole take-down is great:
| https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-1/the-intellectual-situati...
| KerrAvon wrote:
| You know this is also satire, right?
| lmm wrote:
| If it is (and I'm not convinced), what difference does it
| make?
| peppermill wrote:
| I once worked with the Normal Rockwell Estate and their
| letterhead used Comic Sans.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| I still have an _Alfred E. Neuman for President_ bumper sticker
| somewhere IIRC.
|
| When I was much younger, an older relative was overseas for a
| year, I used to trace some of the marginal humor (little funny
| drawings literally in the margin of the magazine pages) on "onion
| skin" airmail sheets (a thin piece of paper, to minimize weight,
| that you wrote your message on one side, then folded up into an
| envelope-size document with Airmail/Par Avion printed on the
| outside where you wrote the address, can't remember if postage
| was prepaid or you had to affix stamps). Because it was onion
| skin, it was semi-transparent which allowed for tracing. He
| appreciated the effort.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Are there any Mad Magazines of today? Are there some publications
| that we'll look back on in 20 years and say "that really shaped
| humor and it's crazy how many interesting people seem to have all
| read this when they were young?" Are they online?
| cholantesh wrote:
| Web sketches and memes will probably be looked at that way, but
| as far as a satirical publication that has sight gags and
| comics...maybe the Onion, but maybe not as contemporary as some
| of its pretenders, of which the Hard Drive is the only one
| that's remotely as funny.
| lykahb wrote:
| The Viz Comics is similar
| mdaniel wrote:
| This may interest you:
| https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=totally+mad+magazine&ia=web
|
| > "Totally MAD" is a collection of the issues of MAD Magazine
| from the start until 1998 published by Broderbund
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| There's also an updated set on DVD called "Absolutely MAD"
| which goes to 2006: https://madcoversite.com/cd.html
| linsomniac wrote:
| There is Mad Magazine reboot from DC Comics, comes out every
| other month. I just ordered it yesterday (in response to this
| HN thread), so we'll see how it is. I figured for $20 for a
| year it was worth a try, see what the son thinks of it.
| https://www.dc.com/mad
| empath75 wrote:
| Magazines are basically dead. It's YouTube channels that are
| molding kids humor now.
| zwieback wrote:
| I grew up in Germany but my parents wanted us to learn English so
| we had subscriptions to many US magazines like Time, National
| Geographic, New Yorker and, most beloved of all, Mad Magazine. Us
| kids would fight over the issue when it showed up, good memories!
| trothamel wrote:
| I saw this exhibition a few weeks ago.
|
| My generally feeling was it didn't work that well, mostly because
| the MAD stuff is very dense, more dense than you'd expect from
| painting in an art gallery. A lot of it is also very dependent on
| pop culture that has changed in the interim.
|
| Probably the two best pieces were the direct parodies of the
| Rockwell paintings, exhibited next to the pieces they parodied.
|
| The Rockwell museum also made an effort to exhibit some of
| Rockwell's most humorous pieces in some of the side galleries,
| which worked well here.
| khafra wrote:
| _Some_ pop culture has changed in the interim. A couple times a
| decade, I find myself using the "Ordinary conformists / Non-
| conformists / MAD non-conformists" article I saw in my
| grandparent's collection as a child.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| For some unfathomable reason, I can still remember their football
| fight song, to the tune of "Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame":
|
| Cheer, cheer for old Pivnick Tech
|
| We're gonna get it right in the neck.
|
| Send a sound of Taps on high,
|
| While Pivnick lays down to die, die, die.
|
| What though the odds be great or small,
|
| Old Pivnick Tech will fumble the ball.
|
| While her undergrads get sick, and
|
| Transfer to USC!
| ABraidotti wrote:
| For any Sergio Aragones fans out there, the Cartoonist Kayfabe
| interview he did where he told the story of how he first got
| hired at MAD is amazing:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm5jk2RadxU
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| I have heard (in uk?) you listen to radio to get the source and
| type it in! By the time of late 1970s you have source code disc
| or even pirated diskette (cutting hole). Hence except a few miss
| the experience of typing your source code or listening to them.
| baerrie wrote:
| Every Friday from age 7-12 my mom would take me to the grocery
| store with her and proceed to take 2 hours to shop. I would read
| every comic they had including MAD and Cracked. Also superhero
| stuff
| interludead wrote:
| A fantastic way to spend those grocery trips!
| interludead wrote:
| MAD didn't just entertain, it pushed boundaries and made people
| question the world around them
| hoseja wrote:
| >spoke truth to power
|
| I've become actually allergic to certain phrases.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| This nostalgia trio reminded me of the article claiming a long,
| previous-to-MAD history of Alfred E. Neuman.
|
| https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/03/03/a-boy-with-no...
| kopirgan wrote:
| As a kid I used to enjoy MAD as my dad used to bring copies from
| his office library. Long before I even knew who Tintin or Asterix
| were, I knew Neumann. Lol
|
| I bought a 6-7 CD set of all MAD issues from start to early 90s
| but it doesn't run anymore, not in Windows 11. Even the software
| was well designed with funny instructions and commands
| Modified3019 wrote:
| My babysitter in the late 90's had a stack of mad magazines (and
| possibly other humor type competitor mags, like Cracked or Nuts)
| I would explore.
|
| The one that lives permanently in my head is a bit where they
| show off a full page cutaway of a house (and possibly wider
| social infrastructure) designed for every single person being so
| fat they use mobility scooters to get around, the tone framed of
| course an an optimistic advancement for society.
|
| That said, I'm not sure if it was MAD or one of the other copycat
| humor mags. I've never been able to find it again in the MAD
| archives I've seen.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| The first read would be to find all the squggles of Sergio
| Aragones...
|
| Brilliant marginalarian.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-09-24 23:02 UTC)